Chicago Cubs: The new ‘Daily Double’ of Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo

Chicago Cub: Did Caray steal ‘Daily Double’ from his trips to Balmoral?

For those too young to remember the great outfielder Bob Dernier or Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg, than you might not be keen to what the ‘Daily Double’ was in 1984 and what it did for the Cubs that season and possibly what it can do for the Cubs in this short season.

Legendary announcer Harry Caray was on the microphone giving fans the play-by-play of the Cubs in 1984. Chicago Cubs games were still broadcast on WGN television, and there were only about 10 channels on all of television at the time. This was before cable TV really took off.

One of the channels, WFLD 32 or ‘Channel 32’ as it’s lovingly referred to by those of us that were subjected to the limited channels in the Chicagoland area during this period, used to host the daily Illinois Lottery drawings which were getting quite popular with television audiences in the state. The drawing looked like a cheap Hollywood game set complete with a horned-section music opener, an announcer and sometimes attractive female assistants. It was like Vegas in Chicago!

1984 was actually the tenth anniversary of the State Lottery in Illinois and so the game that was getting more popular to watch at home on television was also getting into the media for its anniversary year. Nearby Balmoral Park was also a popular hangout for Chicago’s rich and famous at the time and the Daily Double was always a bet at the park.  It’s not so far-fetched to think that Caray with an ear for cool jargon to use on the air, picked up on the gambling term either during his visits to Balmoral or from watching the popular televised lottery drawings nightly.

Either way, it didn’t take long for Caray to apply the term, ‘Daily Double’ to the highly productive 1984 Chicago Cubs number one and two batters, Dernier and Sandberg.